AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The man who gave us General Tso's chicken has died. Peng Chang-kuei was 97. The go-to dish in the Chinese restaurant when you don't know what else to order was created by the chef for a banquet in the 1950s. He named it for a 19th century general. According to The Washington Post, General Tso's chicken made its U.S. debut around the time President Richard Nixon made his opening with China in the early 1970s. The sweet, fried dish we eat today bears little resemblance to Peng Chang-kuei's original non-fried chicken with bones recipe. This apparently amused Mr. Peng who once told an interviewer, this is all crazy nonsense. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.